reunited
by not a straight trumpet
Summary: Kumiko, Reina, Natsuki, and Yuuko all attend a high school reunion. Reunions certainly take place.


**a/n:** has it been more than two months since i posted a fic? yes. do i plan on leaving kumirei behind in 2020? absolutely not.

this fic contains some vague spoilers for the third-year novels!

* * *

"God," Yuuko said, fussing with Natsuki's tie, her hands shaking just a tiny bit. Natsuki recognized this only because she also recognized it in herself, in the way she felt the parts of her that Yuuko touched flare like tiny sunbeams, miniature stars. If their positions had been reversed, she was certain she wouldn't be able to make it through the motions at all - she talked a big game, sure, but she was a hopeless romantic when you got down to it.

It took a lot to make her feel things, to really fall, and when she did she fell hard and fast.

Fortunately, Yuuko had no trouble at all putting on her attire (a dress, blue in the same shade as Natsuki's tie, and a ribbon to match because some habits never really stopped) and so Natsuki just had to stand there, flustered, as Yuuko muttered to herself about how _it's not even that hard to find a YouTube tutorial, you know, and now we'll be late._

Oh, how she'd missed her.

* * *

Kitauji's yearly high school reunion was, Kumiko gathered, more meant for older alumni who'd fallen out of touch with their former classmates than those who'd barely shrugged the uniforms off their shoulders, but she went anyway, because she missed her friends and also because it was winter break and she had little else to do but practice, look at the picture of all of them winning Nationals - dark horse Mayuu standing off in the corner, almost surly, and Kumiko felt a pang of guilt once again. She knew Reina would chide her for it, but Reina wouldn't be here for another half hour, so in guilt she wallowed.

Hence the reason why she was going in the first place - Natsuki had a way of making everything make sense, something Kumiko acutely missed. She was relieved, no longer needed as the band's president, more than happy to pass that particular baton to Kanade (who was actually suited for it, who would lead everyone without a hitch), but in return there was a sort of void, hungry for something else to take its place, and of course she could not confide in Reina about it, not when she was often its source. Not when Shuichi still wanted to give her back the hairpin, which she had more than once considered throwing into the freeway, or the river, or anywhere else it could stop haunting her.

All of this to say she paced around in her room until Reina showed up at the door, hair dusted in snow like someone had dusted her in powdered sugar, already starting to melt in the heat of the apartment. Kumiko snorted, involuntarily, then straightened her back and started to talk.

"D-did my mom let you in?"

"She did. I've missed this." Reina looked around the room, the cacti in the window, Asuka's songbook perched safely on the desk. "It feels like it's been forever since we've just . . . hung out."

"Forever," Kumiko echoed dully, found herself nodding. The days so often blended into each other now. She wondered what it would be like when she graduated - Reina, she knew, was already New York-bound, would leave her behind in a handful of months for a city of lights and rainbow flags and hustle and bustle and metropolitan life.

She tried not to be jealous.

"We're taking the train to the reunion, right?"

"Yep." Kumiko checked the app on her phone again, just to make sure it hadn't gotten delayed in the last hour. "Y'know, it's okay if you don't want to go."

"I think I'd like to see Yoshikawa-senpai again." A smile danced on Reina's lips. "I'd like to see how she's doing."

"Hah, well, she'll definitely be there." Kumiko thought of Natsuki alongside Reina's sort-of formal rival, still the most auspicious power couple to walk the halls of Kitauji without ever once declaring themselves as such.

She'd walked in on them, after Kansai her second year, Natsuki with her hand on Yuuko's back in the bathroom, both of them in tears. There'd been an unspoken agreement not to speak of that, but she thought of it now anyway, of how they'd just _fit. _It made something in Kumiko's heart turn and then settle, like the dial on an oven reaching its next preset, the next step in a combination.

She'd deleted Shuichi's number that night.

"I wonder if Taki-sensei will be there," Reina said, and both of them laughed uneasily at the joke. Kumiko figured he would; if not for the school, for Asuka, on the off-chance she'd be there.

(Kumiko knew in her bones that she wouldn't)

"Niiyama-sensei will." Kumiko wondered, then, if Mizore would show up too, if she'd bring Nozomi in tow. They were all connected, she thought, strings in a great big web or some kind of tapestry.

She needed to get out more, needed to stop thinking in metaphor and prose. It did nothing for her anxiety.

"We should get going, then." Reina offered her arm, an old-fashioned lady suggesting a dance, and gamely Kumiko took it.

* * *

"We don't have to do this," Natsuki said, strutting behind Yuuko, strides long and even. She liked putting her hands in her pockets, feeling the winter wind bite at her cheeks. This weather was made for her, made for tonight. Right now, it was harder to focus on that, because Yuuko wasn't walking with her usual certainty, and it was making Natsuki worried. "We could go out and get something to eat. We could busk. Have ya ever busked, Prez? I could get our instruments from home and-"

"I'm fine." Yuuko's ribbon seemed to stand on end. Natsuki held up her hands, feigned surrender.

"Okay, okay, I was just checking."

"Thanks," Yuuko muttered, face reddening just a little. "It's just weird. What if everyone's different?"

"We're different, aren't we?"

"What if Kaori-senpai's there?"

"She might be."

"What if Oumae-san hates us for pairing her off with that creep Tsukamoto?"

"She'd have every right to." Natsuki looked down at the cracked pavement, the tiny little weeds springing up between the cracks. "We shouldn't have done that, Yuuko."

"It was the best choice for the band! Kousaka-san might be a natural leader, but you of all people know that the two of them being in charge together would've been a disaster."

"What about the best choice for my friend, huh?" Natsuki's tie flapped, stupidly, in the wind as she whirled around. Yuuko didn't even react. "We've both been out since forever. You with your big crush on Kaori-senpai, me with my . . ." -and here she gestured to herself- ". . . everything. Kumiko didn't have that same luxury, y'know. She trusted us as her senpais and as her friends and we let her down."

"I guess we can apologize to her at the party, then." Yuuko kept walking. Natsuki had to run a bit to keep up.

* * *

Kumiko and Reina stood at the entrance, arms still entwined, and Kumiko took a long, deep breath.

"Let's do this," she said, like it was a competition and not a fun thing held in Kitauji's perpetually empty gymnasium.

"Right," Reina said, and she led the way.

* * *

Most of the people, as expected, were older, strangers to Natsuki and Yuuko. They all had name tags, class years, but they might as well have been written in Greek. None of it mattered a lick.

This was just something for the two of them to do, a way to ease their consciousnesses and make amends and _move on, _how badly Natsuki wanted to move on. She'd loved Kitauji, had loved the band, but it was a cocoon she was trying to shrug off now. There were better and brighter things ahead of her. No good being stuck in the past.

"You're still worried about Oumae-san, aren't you?" Yuuko murmured, and there was no malice in her voice. Natsuki nodded, very slowly. "Go and talk to her, then."

And there was Kumiko, standing with Kousaka next to her, and Natsuki leapt in and swept her in a bear hug.

"Look at you!" Kumiko exclaimed, arms thrust out at either side, delighted. "You made it! You look great!" Natsuki mimed the gesture, face split into a wide, wide grin.

"And look at you! Band president, about to graduate with a Nationals trophy under your belt. I couldn't be prouder, Kumiko." A knot twisted in her gut, unpleasant, biting. "And I'm . . . sorry. For saddling ya with Tsukamoto. That was a shitty thing to do and it's just . . . it sucks." It took most of Natsuki's willpower not to chance a look at the side of Kumiko's head to see if she'd given in after all, if that plastic flower sat there. Behind her, Kousaka shifted uncomfortably.

"We're retired now." All the excitement in her voice from moments before seemed to deflate. "Kanade-chan's in charge now."

"Ha. Figures. That kid's got an eye for leadership."

"She really does."

* * *

_Like I don't, _the words unspoken lay about in the air thick as smoke. Kumiko hadn't expected it to go like this - hadn't harbored very much resentment towards Natsuki at all for picking her companion so much as she'd resented Shuichi for his advances in the first place, but the truth of her decision had been something she'd been living with for the past nine months.

"We don't have any more business with the band," Reina said, cutting into the silence. Kumiko breathed a sigh of relief.

"A shame. You're both pretty damn good."

"I'm going to music school in America." Reina let the words speak for themselves. It was Kumiko's turn to stand behind her.

"That's something." Natsuki scratched the back of her neck.

"We're forming a band," Yuuko said. Kumiko blinked.

"You and Natsuki?"

"That was supposed to be a secret!" Natsuki groaned. "We were gonna surprise them right before graduation. It was supposed to be a _thing."_

"What kind of band?" Reina asked.

"We're both on guitar. It's sort of a queer indie-punk type thing? I didn't really want to keep up with the euph, but I liked being with you all in the concert band, so..." Natsuki shrugged, as if to say _that's how it works._

"Hey, that's amazing! I don't really know, exactly, if I'm continuing with the euphonium or what, but, uh, I'm really glad you've found that. I'm just along for the ride right now."

"You're happy, then?" Natsuki looked at her, hands in her pockets.

Kumiko thought of Shuichi, no longer important, thought of how she'd keep talking with Reina even with a few thousand miles between them, thought of her friend right here with her great big smile, and she nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "I think so."

* * *

**a/n:** knowing kumiko and shoe are co-presidents in the third-year novels just. wasn't really compatible with the way i write kumiko and natsuki's friendship so i figured it'd bother natsuki a little that she did that. and that is where this went!

happy new decade.


End file.
